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Here is the point against giving [b]too much[/b] emphasis/detail about the Knights of Chaos too soon:
If I make a big deal out of them, people are going to expect to see them in this book. That is what I am talking about in terms of too much too soon as a spoiler. I think it could make things even more annoying.
As for why they are called Knights of Chaos? (without going into all the details)
They wear gleaming/glowing purplish black plate mail that is far more extensive then most platemail and they have rounded helms. Generally no surcoats.
They then have a large glowing reddish black Chaos emblem on their chests.
They typically right some form of “Nightmare” or fire breathing horse of very large stature. They use lances heavily on horseback, swords, shields, maces, flails etc. The steeds almost always have barding that matches the KofC’s armor. Almost all KofC’s look alike. (which is not very Chaotic…hmm)
So they look like stereotypical knights and they have a Chaos emblem on them so people call them Knights of Chaos. However, their code, if they have one is very dark and unlike any other code of Knighthood. Again, they are more likely to slaughter a widow, orphan or princess than rescue one (rescue in this case means ignore and let live)
They are agents of yet another group of players seeking multiversal influence/domination/destruction, but I don’t plan to get into that at this time. One threat to the multiverse at a time, please.
So I plan to restrict them to their mercenary portfolio, if you will. People call them in to bring about change and chaos; typically with quite a sacrifice. But again they are a two edge sword.
The full details of how they relate to Lillith, the Courts and Orcus is quite detailed and complex; which is why to do them justice, I am concerned about including the battle.
I say 70 to 100 extra pages, but I could see them doing a lot more, and i am concerned about finding a new breaking point between book 2 and 3.
As I’ve said; letting the battle happen moves me past several other cliff hangers and then we go into a very long plotline with the knights (if they are going to make sense) and suddenly the book is 300 pages longer and won’t be out until Xmas.
Would it not be better to break, and perhaps have a sooner book 3; maybe even a bit shorter book 3 of say 1/2 to 2/3’s the current books length if it gets us the battle and other things sooner. By which I mean 6 to 9 months from the release of book 2.
Other options include having a large army coming but not mention KofC until book 3?
Again, a lot of this is time sequential.
We have people who will be important later and it gets very kludgy to back date them when they become important. I am already severely dreading the Asmeth and Rogue stuff. I may have to axe that entire plotline, which means more story work for the future in terms of the final end point. This isn’t end of world, because the ending hasn’t been written and things can change but even so it means rethinking plans, which means time.
Also, not sure how many D’Orc POV’s I have. Don’t think I have an D’Orc POV’s per se. Orcs, yes, D’Orcs not that I can think of.
Also removing people completely is very time consuming; actually all those shortening changes are very time consuming.
Just as time consuming as adding to the story, if not more so. Creating/adding is far easier than deleting and retconning.
Either route means we are looking at an Xmas release.
Hi,
Beta demonization is now closed for the Heavenly Host and no more new beta demon applications will be accepted for The Heavenly Host.
Book 2 is at the editor and while the current beta demons will be continuing to post thoughts and changes that will be sent along to the editor we need to start wrapping things up.
Thanks
T-A-G
You can pile them all into one post if you want. Chapter/Section and then correction.
Also I am going to pay an editor to to technical editing, but they can miss stuff too, so it never hurts to fix what we notice, but if it gets too tedious, don’t worry too much.
This format was for when it looked like we’d have a bunch of people commenting on things in a section at the same time…that really hasn’t happened. People have been spread out in time.
See cross posts..
I went and did a search on principle and fixed them…clearly my principal problem is that I have no principles when it comes to the principal/principle principle.
80.1 noun thus effect
106B: magical is adjective so affect is noun so effect
106B.4 varying nouns so effect again.
While the rules are clear that effect is the only one of the two that can be a noun, the fact it can also be a verb always causes me to thin affect is the noun.
I pretty much assume when I write that I am writing the wrong one. So I suppose I should just use the opposite of what I try to write.
Thanks!
o:)
It’s just that I have typed so many words over the years (there are several half finished books sitting in my queue, plus proposals etc) you would think I’d eventually learn the language.
Hi,
OK, Editor schedule is getting tight. I need to mostly wrap things up for her.
It doesn’t have to be set in total stone, but changes that happen after I send to her probably/may likely not be technically edited, which would mean I (we) would have to carefully review them to be spelling/grammer/construct good.
So the question is: Final thoughts on the ending and the KoC
1) Do we agree that getting rid of the beta 1&2 not-battle with the demons is good? Or do people think keeping that “integration” was better.
2) Can the KoC battle be pushed to book 3? If not, I am thinking the publication will have to shift by another month. (not opposed)
3) If we push KoC battle to book 3, I am concerned about the following
A) I don’t want KoC to be too much of a “tack on” in terms of feeling. i.e. annoying
B) On the other hand I don’t want to give too much away about the KoC, because that could “deintensify” things.
->So I need to balance that: How much more build up/background do I need for the KoC stuff not to seem like an “annoyance”Please give me any other thoughts. I am also still working through what to do about some other issues here and there, along the line of introspection and filling things out as people have mentioned.
T-A-G
Thanks for the feedback.
Take a look at Beta 3 and tell me what you think; that changes the ending quite a bit.
See my comments on it, you don’t need to reread the whole thing, just the affected chapters/end that I mention.
A lot of people have brought up the introspection thing: not enough.
I have to say I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by this because while I like it, I’d thought it would be too much “navel gazing” for most.
So I will work to get more of that in as you suggest.
On the two dropped balls.
Yes, I know I dropped the ball with Vaselle. I was going to do a lot more, but Tom chickened out. That’s about the only way I can explain it. There are limits to what I can force the characters to do at any one point and he rather freaked; Vaselle got too personal too fast and it rather overwhelmed Tom. I.e. it just felt like it was too much for Tom to “handle” at that point in time. Which is why he curled back up into a ball.
In case it’s not obvious, I tend to get wrapped up in some of the characters and their anxieties.
Still pondering on what to do about that.
On the SF front. Yeah, I sort of dropped the ball there too because I felt it was going to drag me too far off topic. But on the PLUS side, I want to do a spin off starring Trig Bioblast and the OCSS (Oak Clan Star Ship) Skull Crusher, where Trig is the Assistant Shaman (Shaman are used for interstellar communication since their communication is not limited by the speed of light–think the Stargate Universe crystals used to communicate from the Destiny back to Earth)
Tom will show up in that and there will be crossover (but won’t require reading both).
Comments probably useful until it is on Amazon.
I will at some point cut off major changes so I can send it to the editor (very late already) but if there are important things that can be done with out major rewrites that would undo editing, I can still do that. E.g. smaller inserts/deletes or issues that could be remedied retroactively.
Different SF worlds could use different technologies. I’d been leaning towards warp drives as that’s my regular preference; however, Star Gates would actually be more consistent with the magic worlds. They’d be tech variants of giant runic gateways and boom tunnels…hmmm…that would give me more sleestak wizard opportunities…
Hmm, maybe a mix, sort of like in the later seasons of the SG universe. Gates for travel to places someone has been before and FTL for exploratory ships and “dropping gates”
I have to say, I have always loved the idea of spaceships diving through stars to collect hydrogen. In SGU, I figured out very early, before the crew, what the ship was planning to do heading towards the star. So that’s a scene I’ve watched several times. Everyone preparing for death and then voila!
That is still up in the air.
My sort of preference at this point is to put in book 3
1) because it will delay the book quite a bit more to add it; it’s another 70-100 pages
2) the time passage will sort of take the other “cliffs/wrap up points” past their expiration date in terms of time.
a) if I go through the battle, Hilda will have to explain herself to Jenn
b) Damien/Gastrope’/orcs will have to sort things out and there is a lot there as Gastrope’ finds himself on both sides of a conflict (the elves are not going to play nice with anyone in Mount Doom)
c) Talarius and Ruiden will be reunited and either (try to) kill Tom before the battle, or join him in battle or just sit there and sulkLooking for feedback from you guys on this.
See Rosver’s comments on this as well as others.
[i][b]I would say this is my BIG remaining sticking point to decide; so I need you guys to all weigh in![/b][/i]
